Yeah, we did watch Jerry Maguire tonight!  It’s a perfect way to start the football season. . .really, it’s a lot better than watching preseason football.  There are preseason games on Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night. . .and for the first few weeks, they are nothing more than auditions for ‘The Show’.  Even though every sportswriter, every television commentator, every radio mouth-piece and most fans are jaw-jacking about glaring weaknesses here and glaring weaknesses there.  Really?  Have you looked at the rosters of these teams?  In Pro Football, training camp starts with 90 players.  AND, roughly half of them will NEVER see the field of dreams.  So, the preseason games really are auditions for a future. . .either in professional football or in the REAL WORLD.  We suspect that most guys on these rosters would much rather be football players than dealing with the  REAL WORLD.

So, in the movie, Cuba Gooding, Jr. plays Rod Tidwell of the Arizona Cardinals…we don’t have to go into the plot since the movie has been out since 1996, but it illustrates the cut-throat nature of representing professional athletes, it represents the greed of take it all now mentality and the obvious…”what’s in it for me” mentality that professional athletes have been groomed to expect.  And, it doesn’t matter what sport–translated loosely to business–they’re in.  Basketball, Football, Baseball, Hockey–it’s ALL about showing them the money!  We all know why–because the OWNERS are filthy-rich, spoiled and get exactly what they want.  At some point, in the not-too-distant-future, professional sports will collapse on itself–under the weight of drug abuse, greed and lack of trust.  Baseball is probably the first to go. . .

Fortunately, when it comes to enjoying a nice wine, you don’t always have to show the money.  In fact, as we’ve been able to show over the past 342 days, there are AMAZING wines available for only a few dollars a bottle that offer amazing taste, structure, finish and value.  Tonight, we add yet another nice wine to the stable – actually it runs around $30 per bottle, but we found it on sale for half that at our Kyle HEB.

This wine was first tasted in the land of the BRWC – aka Casa de P&L.  It is a 2010 Shatter Grenanche – now we must admit, and have several time throughout this blog, that we are not big fans of French wine . . . it’s nothing personal, some of our favorite foreign exchange students are from France – heck, even the Coneheads are from Remulak (somewhere in France, right?).  When we first popped open the cork, we knew immediately that it needed some air time.  After decanting for about 30 minutes, the nose opened up to strawberry, pepper, cherry, black plum and vanilla notes.  The palate continued down the path of dark berries, plum and cherries. The strawberry notes there, but less noticeable. Barreled in french oak helps this wine – but the pepper balances it out nicely.  The finish is nice enough, smooth yet a bit of a bite – but overall very nice.  We’d buy it again at the sale price, but not at a regular price of $30 plus.

Let’s face it. . .there are literally hundreds of sports stories out on the silver screen. . .from Monty Stratton to Gale Sayers and from the US Olympic Hockey team to the US Ryder Cup Championship, if there’s a way for Hollywood to make a buck–they’ll make a picture.  Jerry Maguire was a mere glimpse into the world of sports agents. . .OZV Zinfandel is a mere glimpse into the world of truly value-priced wines that taste good, look good and are worth every penny.

We hope that you’ll enjoy your favorite wine responsibly and remember to recycle whenever possible.